


Sure on this shining night

by Ohalovaya



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Aging, M/M, Pining, ksadvent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 03:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13138212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohalovaya/pseuds/Ohalovaya
Summary: In their autumn years, a diplomatic mission provides an opportunity for our favourite Space Husbands to observe the holidays differently. (Generations didn’t happen.)For theKSAdvent 2017. With gratitude to AnnaKnitsSpock for her beta reading!Withart by TPrillahfiction.





	Sure on this shining night

**Author's Note:**

> Before reading this, read James Agee's poem, [_Sure on this shining night_](https://allpoetry.com/Sure-On-This-Shining-Night). (Not posted directly here, because of copyright.) The poem comes from a book by James Agee entitled "Permit Me Voyage" published 1934 by Yale University Press.

***

It had been many years since James Kirk, retired Admiral of the Federation’s Starfleet, had felt such contentment or such wholeness. He gently tightened his grip on the alien arms that were folded across his chest, and rubbed up and down along the sleeves that covered them. Even that motion was too much for the sweet, summer-wine lethargy which pervaded his awareness, so Jim’s own arthritis-knarled, liver-spotted hands came to rest over slender-strong, green-tinged fingers.

Qenda was a beautiful planet, famous for its enormous silver birch trees with ever-golden leaves. The Qendii were equally famed for their skill with woodworking and intricate carving, hewn and woven out of living wood. They were peaceable, compassionate, and far-sighted. While their physical bodies aged quickly, they lived with ever-present consciousness of the eternal “now”.  Spock had been posted here as a Federation Ambassador at the recent summer solstice festivities—a cross between new year’s celebrations and observance of rites of atonement for which there were planet-wide public holidays.

It would be easy, here in this timeless place, to forget its passing. To forget the exigencies of age. To believe that under the golden leaves of the great silver birches it would always be high summer, and each phase of the day—dawn, sunrise, morning, noon, afternoon, sunset, dusk, night—eternal moments unchanging.

It would also be a lie. For the inhabitants of this world were short-lived and transient, compared to the long lives of Vulcans, or even the shorter span allotted humans. And yet, the Qendii embraced joyfully the procession of life, unafraid of death or dying. For them, death was the gateway to full realization, and to union with Divine consciousness.

 _How nice it would be_ , Jim thought, _to have such fearless uncertainty_. As a child of enlightened Earth, Jim had been content with the notion of leaving a legacy, and for most of his early life had entertained no notions of immortality or transcendence. Until he’d met Spock. Until he had lived and breathed, worked alongside, suffered and sacrificed for, died a thousand deaths, loved, and cherished a half-human son of Vulcan. These days, he was fully convinced of the reality of the Vulcan katra—had seen it embodied in the mind of another, and transferred back to animate the empty shell of his lover’s body. And if the whole business of Spock’s death and remarkable re-fusion forty years ago had been insufficient proof, the experience of bonding would have offered more than enough testimony: his own life-essence bound by the arcane mysteries of Vulcan superstition to Spock’s.

But new thoughts had settled like sediment in the bed of Jim’s mind in the last few days. And these questions were no longer academic.

“Spock.”

“Jim?” Spock murmured his name, leaning forward to plant a kiss in Jim’s hair. He’d always loved Jim’s hair, and the fact it was grey, thinning, and lank apparently made no difference to Spock.

“I’ve been thinking…” he began, and then subsided with a sigh.

“What have you been thinking about?” Spock prompted after a few minutes of silence.

_The ceremony was incredibly touching and unexpected. Each year’s end, the oldest couple present was invited to reaffirm their commitment to each other publicly. It was an essential part of the rite of releasing what had been on the threshold of that which was yet to be, thus blessing and sealing the new year with an affirmation of love. The Qendii venerated their elderly, given so few of them lived long. This time, the Federation Ambassador and his retired Admiral husband were honoured to be invited to be that blessing couple; the fact that they had been united in mind and body for the best part of fifty years had impressed the High Magnate of the Qendii._

_“Many years: great beatitude,” she declared, pressing her hands together and bowing to them after offering the invitation._

_After having been married on countless planets during their many missions, it was no hardship to offer themselves to this rite. Poignant, perhaps, given that there were more years together stretching behind them than before. But they joyfully agreed to plight their troth again._

“Jim?” Spock said again.

“Sorry. I was thinking about yesterday’s ceremony.”

“Ah.”

Jim chuckled. “It never gets old, marrying you.”

“Indeed, it does not.” He could feel the warmth of Spock’s assent and affection in his mind, and surrounding him. Spock was seated with his back to one of the great birches, with Jim leaning on him between his legs, Spock’s arms holding his bondmate securely. Beside them on the grass were the remains of a picnic, including half a bottle of the local equivalent of champagne. “It was an aesthetically pleasing event. Pleasing in other ways, of course, as well.”

Jim smiled to himself, remembering.

_The ceremony began with a great procession by starlight, for the stars were much loved by the Qendii. The silver trunks of the birches glowed in the light of the three moons. Tiny lights were strung in the lower branches of the trees lining the processional path up to the top of the meeting mound in the centre of the forest. As they walked barefoot on the thick, cool grass, the scent of green and damp earth, of late-summer flowers and falling golden leaves imprinted itself in Jim’s memory, and he savoured each passing second._

_Each of them had been groomed and pampered to within an inch of his life (so it seemed to Jim, who had actually fallen asleep in his lightly-scented bath, and then again on the massage table). They’d been arrayed in cloth of gold threaded with hand-sewn crystals that glittered in the starlight like dew on a spider’s web. The Qendii escorted them to the place of plighting until they stood on a quartz platform before the High Magnate._

_In deference to Jim’s knees they had not been made to kneel for the rite._

_“Ground of our being, dawn of our days and there at their ending, peace that passes understanding, great Spirit of all that is: be present now,” the High Magnate sang in a lilting chant._

_“Be present now,” the company responded._

_After a preamble, she said smiled beatifically at the couple before her. “Bless us by your union, and renew your commitment in the way of your people.”_

_That, they had confirmed with the High Magnate, meant “according to Vulcan tradition”._

_“As it was in the dawn of our days, as it is today, as it will be for all tomorrows, I make my choice. Parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched,” they intoned together. And the words evoked the long faithfulness over many years: two bondings, one severing; each time Spock’s_ pon farr _had drawn them into madness and want and ecstasy; each time they had murmured the renewal of their oneness in the face of injury and hurt, joy and triumph and sorrow._

_It was all present again as Jim looked deep into the eyes of the one he loved, at once so Other and familiar, as the beloved hand found the well-known connection points along Jim’s cheek._

_The words were hardly necessary:_ our minds… one… together _. This time, with the odd experience of something so private being intended somehow for the blessing of many. How the mechanics of that would work, Jim hadn’t been prepared to speculate. Mysticism wasn’t something he understood, but accepted._

_Bittersweet, that blessing. Like the last kisses of the setting sun, heralding the descent into darkness. Or like the last of the wine, or the passing of river water, or of leaves falling on the wind… Or like the ending of a year, and the inescapable passing of time. Here, in this moment, the transience of mortal life weighed heavy before the veil of eternal reality._

Jim stilled. “Spock, I don’t think I can come with you anymore on these missions,” he said softly.

Spock’s grip tightened, and Jim felt dismay followed by cautious, grieving acceptance, and then logical pragmatism across their bond. “Oh, Jim,” the Vulcan said, sinking his face to the juncture of Jim’s neck and shoulder. It was exactly where he had sunk his teeth last night, in the midst of their passion.

 _As often happens when faced with the magnitude of life and death, when the pair retired for the night after the ceremony, their awareness of their fragility drove an intense renewal of their bond, physically and mentally. With a level of desperation, hands mapped over and again planes of muscle and bone which signaled_ home, joy, identity _. Lips worshipped and drank their fill of the other’s sweetness. And at the end, arms held tenderly the burden of the other, their minds resting intermingled and together._

_Lying there, listening to his bondmate’s gentle susurrations, Jim felt every ache of his ninety-something years. He had no regrets about their intimacy, in spite of the fact it would be days before he recovered from it, his body really too frail for such exercise._

He felt it now, too, and not just physically. “I’m too old and achy to follow you, _ashayam_.”

“Jim—” Spock protested.

“There’s an old earth saying: the spirit’s willing, but the body is weak. You know I’d go with you everywhere if I could. Ever and always.”

There was a long pause. “Yes,” Spock agreed softly. “I know. I have been expecting this for some time.”

“Well, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? Medical science can only go so far. Honestly, I only _want_ it to go so far. Mortals shouldn’t live forever, not physically at least.”

“There is wisdom in Vulcan tradition.”

“Ah, yes. But humans haven’t worked out how to extract soul/spirit/life-force or whatever you want to call it from the body and put it into a vessel, like the Vulcans have.” Jim shuddered. “And I’m not sure I’d want that, anyway.”

Spock’s arms tightened again, his mental presence drawing similarly close in Jim’s mind. “I do not wish to be parted from you.”

Jim turned over with difficulty, so that they were looking at each other. “Nor I from you, Spock.” He took the hands still unmarred by age in his own, and kissed Spock’s palms. “One wise Earth-person once said, ‘No act of love is ever wasted’. And another wrote a fable suggesting that love makes us real. If I followed that logic, then perhaps what we’ve shared, what we have, will remain real, will… remain.”

Spock’s eyes danced, in spite of the solemnity of the conversation. “That logic is almost worthy of Vulcan.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Spock!” Jim quipped.

Spock sighed. “It is not logical to grieve a life well-lived. You have lived life well. And yet…”His voice softened; it was still difficult for Spock to vocalize how deeply he felt. “I find that I cannot contemplate living without you.” Spock reached down and started to twist and turn the blades of summer grass.

“Didn’t you once tell me that the kind of bond we have will endure? That it can’t be severed even by death? I distinctly remember you telling me that if either of us died before the other, the link between us would work like a homing beacon; that across all time and space, dimensions and universes, life and whatever comes next, we will find one another?”

Spock’s eyes shifted away from Jim’s to watch his fingers being stained green from crushing the grass. “The closer the proximity to the event horizon, the less sure the certainty.”

Jim contemplated that for a moment, rolling over again to lean against Spock. Spock’s arms came around him again possessively, as though he could physically hold back the tide of time. Black holes and the physics related to them was really Spock’s domain, but Jim knew enough to parse Spock’s meaning, and his heart clenched painfully. “It does feel a bit like we’re watching a ship being eternally sucked towards the event horizon. But don’t you see: if we are the ship, there is no horizon for us. We will simply come to and experience the singularity—and pass beyond spacetime. It isn’t logical to worry about this: what will be, will be. But it is most logical to hope that what lies beyond it is not destruction but something else entirely. Aren’t you curious about what that might be?”

Spock hummed noncommittally. “Jim, I once passed beyond ‘the event horizon’.”

“Yes.” The pain of it was still there like an old scar which twinged occasionally. “Then you know—”

“I know nothing!” Spock’s sudden vehemence surprised Jim. “I know nothing,” he repeated, this time moderating his response. Jim’s senses were on alert, and the air around them seemed to shimmer. In all the years, and for all that there were no secrets between them, they had never talked in depth about what it had been like for Spock to die. This evening was clearly a threshold over which many things would pass. “I know nothing, for there is nothing to know.”

“What about the sense of union with the All, Universal Consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, which Vulcans strive for?”

“I have no memory of it.”

“There were special circumstances: placing your katra/awareness in McCoy’s mind, your body regenerated on Genesis, the Refusion… Maybe the experience was atypical?”

“I do not know. And you are human.”

“Ah.” So now they’d hit the nub of the matter. “So… You suspect that there is nothing beyond this life, because you can’t remember what happened when you died, and in any case, you wonder whether different things will happen for us because I’m human, and while you’re half-human, the Vulcan in you prevails in most things? Did I get all that?”

Spock was silent, and the air around them felt heavy.

What a fragile thing, that by which beings defined themselves! Spock had never had any problems embracing, celebrating, loving and treasuring Jim’s innermost self. Though from what Jim gleaned in his bondmate’s mind (never articulated), Spock’s katra was not equivalent to Jim’s soul or spirit. Jim had never been able to wrap his own mind around the apparent inequality. In the end, for the sake of peace with the being he loved, he had decided to accept as an article of faith the fact that Spock saw no obstacle in the difference between them. Spock, in fact, embraced the diversity, having long ago decided this was a manifestation of IDIC that gave him great satisfaction. And that had been enough for Jim. Now Spock seemed to be having second thoughts.

“Look, Spock. According to the dominant narratives in both our cultures, something of us continues, some consciousness. Sure, it may be that we go into a nothingness and cease to exist. But isn’t it better, isn’t it more life-giving, to choose to believe that love and life endure? Perhaps not in a way we can comprehend in our current existence, but in some way? We lose nothing in hoping. And we definitely lose nothing in loving.”

The mild evening breeze made murmurs in the canopy above them. The last rays of the sun kissed the silver bark and golden leaves as it slipped beyond the horizon; two birds ascended on a fluttering of wings from the branches above the pair, and the heaviness that had been around them lifted. This was not a place where death could be final.

“If we were on Earth, it’d be New Year’s Day today,” Jim said. He could practically feel the rise of one elegant brow at this apparently illogical non-sequitur. “You know the tradition of New Year’s resolutions?”

“I am familiar with the custom, yes.”

“Then maybe this can be ours: to make every moment in the year ahead which we spend together eternal. To lean on kindness, and to show it in turn. And: never to lose our curiosity or our wonder at life in all its complexity, wherever we find it.”

In response, Spock shifted as though to wrap himself around Jim’s frame. “Laudable aims, _ashayam_.”

From somewhere, the voices of the Qendii carried through the glade, raised in an evening hymn.

“They are singing with wonder at the stars as they begin to appear,” Spock commented. The song went on; even at this distance it had a haunting power to profoundly move the hearer. “It is an ancient hymn.”

“The High Magnate appeared pleased with our ‘wedding’ blessing.”

“She did, Jim.”

Perhaps it was something about the song. Or perhaps it was the summer warmth, the scents of flowers in full bloom carried to where they sat, or the plenteous wine they’d drunk earlier, lighter than elderberry and barely more substantial than dew, and yet potent and heady. Jim couldn’t help but feel the blessing their reaffirmation had been designed to bring to the Qendii had been bestowed on them too.

“ _Whatever lies ahead, and whatever lies behind us, let us be whole for now, and let the energy of the stars and their light on the waters fill us with hope_ ,” Spock translated softly.

Jim sat up and reached for the wine bottle, and Spock assisted by handing him their empty glasses to refill.

“I’ll drink to that. Will you join me, Mr. Ambassador?” He handed Spock his glass. Spock didn’t usually drink, but he’d made an exception on this evening.

“To every eternal moment with you, Spock.”

They sat, drinking the last of their summer wine as the celestial music swept them with its beauty. It was enough, for now.

FIN

***


End file.
